Cav's Place

On January 18, the Internet united to fight against SOPA and PIPA. However, the fact that everyone had their sights on that battle meant that their big brother, ACTA, which is an international treaty that has flown under the radar all along, seeming like a distant threat to all but those who were at the forefront of the struggle against it, could slip through the cracks. And that’s exactly what happened on January 26, when representatives of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom signed the treaty, joining Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States, which had signed it in 2010.
Yes, this signing was largely symbolic, as the actual debates on whether the European Union should approve the treaty or not will only now begin, with the final vote scheduled for this summer, but the period during which any changes could be made has indeed ended. This means that the treaty can now only be approved or rejected in its entirety and that the goal of the fight is very clear: ACTA must be rejected and nothing else like it should ever be allowed to come into existence, whether at the national or international level.

With that goal in mind, several petitions have been started, the most successful one apparently being the one created by Avaaz, which has so far gathered over two million signatures. But perhaps more importantly, this Saturday, on September 11, there will be worldwide protests against ACTA, in which I encourage you all to take part. The powers that be must hear our voices loud and clear and see that we are ready to fight against any and all attempts to take away even more of our freedoms and put our lives at the mercy of corporations and governments. This trend must be stopped and reversed now, while it’s still possible to do so!
I know it’s winter and the weather in most of Europe in particular is especially unsuitable for such protests at this time, but this could be one of the reasons why they chose that date for the signing. So we have to show them that they can’t silence us through such tricks, that we’re willing to fight for ourselves even if the conditions are difficult and even if they try to dishearten us by flooding us with bad news. If even I plan to take part, then all of you who actually get out of your houses more or less daily have no excuse to stay in now!

Before I end this post, I’d like to also make you aware of next month’s protest action: Black March. Let’s hit those responsible for such laws and treaties where it hurts the most and boycott their products completely. For the entire month of March, we shouldn’t buy, rent or otherwise obtain, whether legally or illegally, any movie, music, software or book that’s not made freely available by its creator(s). We’ll hurt their profits and, by also choosing to refrain from “piracy” during this time, we’ll show them that we can actually survive without their products and therefore they couldn’t force us to pay for those we can’t afford or simply don’t think are worth a purchase even if they’d somehow make it completely impossible to obtain them otherwise.